As the autonomous vehicle industry moves into its second decade of mainstream development, much of the focus remains on on-road navigation—urban shuttles, robo-taxis and highway driving. But beyond the roadway lies a far more complex challenge: true autonomy in the unpredictable, unstructured environments of off-road terrain.
That’s where Neya Systems, a division of Applied Research Associates, has been building one of the most advanced autonomy stacks in the world.
At the heart of this effort is N-Drive, Neya’s multi-domain, vehicle-agnostic autonomy software stack designed specifically for rugged ground environments. “Everybody’s focusing on what I call reconnaissance, which is just following waypoints, avoiding obstacles and off-road terrain. We do that, but we also cover applications like construction and route clearance,” said Kurt Bruck, division manager and vice president of Neya Systems, in an interview with Inside Unmanned Systems. “We have a number of different planners that allow vehicles to do autonomous dig-dump cycles—digging holes in the earth, moving the pile of dirt to another location, managing that pile—as well as reconnaissance, combat and convoying.
Read the full article on Inside Unmanned Systems.
